I Can’t Stop The Bleeding

I still believe in love, even though you don’t love me anymore. I still believe in the dream. I still believe that I can reach your heart. I know that I can touch you, holdyou, fill up the empty places. All I need is the chance.

The day you left I sat apart and alone and I have lived my life like that ever since. It is my choice. It is my decision. I sit in the dark and stare off into nothingness wondering if the door will open and I’ll find you there.

It is a dream that I have often. Alone in the dark I stare and wonder what I did to deserve such pain. I beat myself up wondering why. It is easier to blame myself and to keep you on your pedestal.

After a time the empty place in my heart feels normal as does the numb spot where my soul once lay. Do you remember the shirt you left at my place? I didn’t wash it because it smelled like you. For a while I would bury my face in it, smell you and forget that you weren’t really here.

For a while it helped me pretend that I wasn’t just a shell of a person and that once I used to know how to smile. Sometimes I look at the pictures of who we were and I am taken back to that moment. The sad part is that whatever moment I think of is one in which we are smiling and laughing.

I know that we had moments in which we didn’t get along. I know that we fought, but somehow those moments are clouded and hard to remember. It is just foolishness to be like this. I tell myself that you weren’t that special and that you had lots of faults. I make lists of everything you did that pissed me off. I try to convince myself that you were ordinary, plain and unworthy of the praise I shower upon you.

I fail.

The water in the shower is icy cold. My skin pruned and wrinkled and my teeth are chattering. When I first got in the heat scalded my back, but I forced myself to endure it. Eventually I found myself curled up in a ball on the floor, unable to move. I can’t tell you how long I have been there.

Sleep is not an escape. My mind provides no refuge. It works overtime. Again and again I have dreams that leave me unsettled. You are in trouble. You need me. You cry out for me. I fight to reach you, but I am always too late. Whenever I find you there is nothing that I can do to save you. I can’t stop the bleeding.

The sun shines but I just can’t feel the heat. It doesn’t matter what the forecast says, my sky is cloudy and gray. I feel like I am covered in ash. A leper who is barely tolerated.